Abstract

Steganography is the art of hiding information in ways that prevent the detection of hidden messages. Steganography, derived from Greek, literally means covered writing. It includes a vast array of secret communications methods that conceal the messages very existence. These methods include invisible inks, microdots, character arrangement, digital signatures, covert channels, and spread spectrum communications. Steganography and cryptography are cousins in the spy craft family. Cryptography scrambles a message so it cannot be understood. Steganography hides the messages it cannot be seen. A message in cipher text, for instance, might arouse suspicion on the part of the recipient while an invisible message created with steganographic methods will not.

STEGANOGRAPHY

SUBMITTED BY: PRIYANKA VERGADIA ELECTRONICS TELECOMM. &

S.G.S.I.T.S. INDORE

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION WHAT IS STEGANOGRAPHY STEGANOGRAPHY VS CRYPTOGRAPHY STEGANOGRAPHY TERMS HISTORY OF STEGANOGRAPHY HOW IT WORKS STEGANOGRAPHIC MODEL MASKING AND FILTERING STEGANOGRAPHY IN IMAGES STEGANOGRAPHY IN AUDIO STEGANOGRAPHY IN VIDEO STEGANOGRAPHY IN DOCUMENTS DETECTING STEGANOGRAPHY STEGANOGRAPHY USES STEGANOGRAPHY DISADVANTAGES CONCLUSION REFRENCES

Introduction
Steganography is the art of hiding information in ways that prevent the detection of hidden messages. Steganography, derived from Greek, literally means covered writing. It includes a vast array of secret communications methods that conceal the messages very existence. These methods include invisible inks, microdots, character arrangement, digital signatures, covert channels, and spread spectrum communications. Steganography and cryptography are cousins in the spy craft family. Cryptography scrambles a message so it cannot be understood. Steganography hides the messages it cannot be seen. A message in cipher text, for instance, might arouse suspicion on the part of the recipient while an invisible message created with steganographic methods will not.

What Steganography essentially does is exploit human perception, human senses are not trained to look for files that have information hidden inside them, although there are programs available that can do what is called Steganalysis (Detecting use of Steganography.) The most common use of Steganography is to hide a file inside another file. When information or a file is hidden inside a carrier file, the data is usually encrypted with a password.

Cryptography / Steganography
Cryptography Encryption: translate information into an unintelligible form Decryption: decode to retrieve information Attackers cannot recover the information Stenography Hide information in a seemingly common message Security through obscurity: Attackers dont know where to find the information

What Is Steganography?
Steganography is the practice of hiding private or sensitive information within something that appears to be nothing out of the usual. Steganography is often confused with cryptology because the two are similar in the way that they both are used to protect important information. The difference between the two is that Steganography involves hiding information so it appears that no information is hidden at all. If a person or persons views the object that the information is hidden inside of he or she will have no idea that there is any hidden information, therefore the person will not attempt to decrypt the information. Steganography comes from the Greek words Stegans (Covered) and Graptos (Writing). Steganography in the modern day sense of the word usually refers to information or a file that has been concealed inside a digital Picture, Video or Audio file.

Steganography Terms
Carrier File A file which has hidden information inside it is termed as a carrier file. Steganalysis The process of detecting hidden information inside a file is called steganalysis. Stego-Medium The medium in which the information is hidden is called stego-medium. Redundant Bits Piece of information inside a file which can be overwritten or altered without damaging the file s termed as redundant bits. Payload The information which is to be concealed is termed as payload.

History of Steganography
Through out history Steganography has been used to secretly communicate information between people. Some examples of use of Steganography in past times are: 1. During World War 2 invisible ink was used to write information on pieces of paper so that the paper appeared to the average person as just being blank pieces of paper. Liquids such as urine, milk, vinegar and fruit juices were used, because when each one of these substances are heated they darken and become visible to the human eye. 2. In Ancient Greece they used to select messengers and shave their head, they would then write a message on their had. Once the message had been written the hair was allowed to grow back. After the hair grew back the messenger was sent to deliver the message, the recipient would shave off the messengers hair to see the secret message. 3. Another method used in Greece was where someone would peel wax off a tablet that was covered in wax, write a message underneath the wax then re-apply the wax. The recipient of the message would simply remove the wax from the tablet to view the message.

exception of JPEG images). All color variations for the pixels are derived from three primary colors: red, green, and blue. Each primary color is represented by 1 byte; 24-bit images use 3 bytes per pixel to represent a color value. These 3 bytes can be represented as hexadecimal, decimal, and binary values. In many Web pages, the background color is represented by a six-digit hexadecimal numberactually three pairs representing red, green, and blue. A white background would have the value FFFFFF: 100 percent red (FF), 100 percent green (FF), and 100 percent blue (FF). Its decimal value is 255, 255, 255, and its binary value is 11111111, 11111111, 11111111, which are the three bytes making up white. This definition of a white background is analogous to the color definition of a single pixel in an image. Pixel representation contributes to file size. For example, suppose we have a 24-bit image 1,024 pixels wide by 768 pixels higha common resolution for high resolution graphics. Such an image has more than two million pixels, each having such a definition, which would produce a file exceeding 2 Mbytes. Because such 24-bit images are still relatively uncommon on the Internet, their size would attract attention during transmission. File compression would thus be beneficial, if not necessary, to transmit such a file. File compression Two kinds of compression are lossless and lossy. Both methods save storage space but have different results, interfering with the hidden information, when the information is uncompressed. Lossless compression lets us reconstruct the original message exactly; therefore, it is preferred when the original information must remain intact (as with steganographic images). Lossless compression is typical of images saved as GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) and 8-bit BMP (a Microsoft Windows and OS/2 bitmap file). Lossy compression, on the other hand, saves space but may not maintain the original images

How Does it Work

Image Files To a computer, an image is an array of numbers that represent light intensities at various points (pixels).These pixels make up the images raster data. A common image size is 640 80 4 pixels and 256 colors (or 8 bits per pixel). Such an image could contain about 300 kilobits of data. Digital images are typically stored in either 24-bitor 8-bit files. A 24-bit image provides the most space for hiding information; however, it can be quite large (with the

integrity. This method typifies images saved as JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group). Due to the lossy compression algorithm, which we discuss later, the JPEG formats provide close approximations to high-quality digital photographs but not an exact duplicate. Hence the term lossy compression. Embedding data Embedding data, which is to be hidden, into an image requires two files. The first is the innocent-looking image that will hold the hidden information, called the cover image. The second file is the messagethe information to be hidden. A message may be plain text, ciphertext, other images, or anything that can be embedded in a bit stream. When combined, the cover image and the embedded message make a stegoimage. A stego-key (a type of password) may also be used to hide, then later decode, the message. Most steganography software neither supports nor recommends using JPEG images, but recommends instead the use of lossless 24-bit images such as BMP. The next-best alternative to 24-bit images is 256-color or gray-scale images. The most common of these found on the Internet are GIF files. In 8-bit color images such as GIF files, each pixel is represented as a single byte, and each pixel merely points to a color index table (a palette) with 256 possible colors. The pixels value, then, is between 0 and 255. The software simply paints the indicated color on the screen at the selected pixel position. Concealment in Digital Images Information can be hidden many different ways in images. To hide information, straight message insertion may encode every bit of information in the image or selectively embed the message in noisy areas that draw less attentionthose areas where there is a great deal of natural color variation. The message may also be scattered randomly throughout the image. Redundant pattern encoding

wallpapers the cover image with the message. A number of ways exist to hide information in digital images. Common approaches include Least significant bit insertion, Masking and filtering, and Algorithms and transformations. Each of these techniques can be applied, with varying degrees of success, to different image files. Least significant bit insertion Least significant bit (LSB) insertion is a common, simple approach to embedding information in a cover file. Unfortunately, it is vulnerable to even a slight image manipulation. Converting an image from a format like GIF or BMP, which reconstructs the original message exactly (lossless compression) to a JPEG, which does not (lossy compression), and then back could destroy the information hidden in the LSBs. . 24-bit images. To hide an image in the LSBs of each byte of a 24-bit image, you can store 3 bits in each pixel. A 1,024 768 image has the potential to hide a total of 2,359,296 bits (294,912 bytes) of information. If you compress the message to be hidden before you embed it, you can hide a large amount of information. To the human eye, the resulting stego-image will look identical to the cover image. For example, the letter A can be hidden in three pixels (assuming no compression). The original raster data for 3 pixels (9 bytes) may be (00100111 11101001 11001000) (00100111 11001000 11101001) (11001000 00100111 11101001) The binary value for A is 10000011. Inserting the binary value for A in the three pixels would result in (00100111 11101000 11001000) (00100110 11001000 11101000) (11001000 00100111 11101001) The underlined bits are the only three actually changed in the 8 bytes used. On average, LSB requires that only half the bits in an image be

changed. You can hide data in the least and second least significant bits and still the human eye would not be able to discern it. 8-bit images. 8-bit images are not as forgiving to LSB manipulation because of color limitations. Steganogaphy software authors have devised several approaches some more successful than othersto hide information in 8-bit images. First, the cover image must be more carefully selected so that the stego-image will not broadcast the existence of an embedded message. When information is inserted into the LSBs of the raster data, the pointers to the color entries in the palette are changed. In an abbreviated example, a simple four-color palette of white, red, blue, and green has corresponding palette position entries of 0 (00), 1 (01), 2 (10), and 3 (11), respectively. The raster values of four adjacent pixels of white, white, blue, and blue are 00 00 10 10. Hiding the binary value 1010 for the number 10 changes the raster data to 01 00 11 10, which is red, white, green, blue. These gross changes in the image are visible and clearly highlight the weakness of using 8-bit images. On the other hand, there is little visible difference noticed between adjacent gray values. Implementing LSB. Steganography software processes LSB insertion to make the hidden information less detectable. For example, the EzStego tool arranges the palette to reduce the occurrence of adjacent index colors that contrast too muchbefore it inserts the message. This approach works quite well in grayscale images and may work well in images with related colors. S-Tools, another steganography tool, takes a different approach by closely approximating the cover image, which may mean radical palette changes. As with 24- bit images, changing the pixels LSB may create new colors. (New colors may not be added to an 8-bit image due to the palette limit.) Instead, S-Tools reduces the number of colors while maintaining the image quality, so that the

LSB changes do not drastically change color values. For example, eight color values are required for each color if values 000 through 111 are to be stored. Reducing the number of unique colors to 32 ensures that these values can be used and that the number of colors will not exceed 256 (256/8 = 32). Each of the 32 unique colors in the palette may be expanded to eight colors having LSB values of the red, green, blue (RGB) triples ranging from 000 to 111. This results in multiple colors in the palette that look the same visually but that may vary by one bit.5 These tools take a similar approach with gray-scale images. However, the resulting stego-images as applied with S-Tools are no longer gray-scale. Instead of simply going with adjacent colors as EzStego does, STools manipulates the palette to produce colors that have a difference of one bit. For example, in a normal gray-scale image, white will move to black with the following RGB triples (255 255 255), (254 254 254), ...,(1 1 1), (0 0 0)After processing with S-Tools, the value for white will be spread over a range of up to eight colors such as (255 255 255), (255 255 254), and (255 254 255) Visually, the stego-image may look the same as the gray-scale cover image, but it has actually become an 8-bit color image.

Steganographic model
Stego Key (K) Stego Key (K)

cover C

Stego Function fE Stego S Embedded (E) Sender

Stego Inverse Function fE-1 Embedded (E)

Recipient

Masking and filtering

Masking and filtering techniques, usually restricted to 24-bit and gray-scale images, hide information by marking an image, in a manner similar to paper watermarks. Watermarking

techniques may be applied without fear of image destruction due to lossy compression because they are more integrated into the image. Visible watermarks are not steganography by definition. The difference is primarily one of intent. Traditional steganography conceals information; watermarks extend information and become an attribute of the cover image. Digital watermarks may include such information as copyright, ownership, or license, as shown in Figure 3. In steganography, the object of communication is the hidden message. In digital water marks, the object of communication is the cover. To create the watermarked image we increase the luminance of the masked area by 15 percent. If we were to change the luminance by a smaller percentage, the mask would be undetected by the human eye. Now we can use the watermarked image to hide plaintext or encoded information. Masking is more robust than LSB insertion with respect to compression, cropping, and some image processing. Masking techniques embed information in significant areas so that the hidden message is more integral to the cover image than just hiding it in the noise level. This makes it more suitable than LSB with, for instance, lossy JPEG images. Algorithms and transformations LSB manipulation is a quick and easy way to hide information but is vulnerable to small changes resulting from image processing or lossy compression. Such compression is a key advantage that JPEG images have over other formats. High color quality images can be stored in relatively small files using JPEG compression methods; thus, JPEG images are becoming more abundant on the Internet. One steganography tool that integrates the compression algorithm for hiding information is Jpeg- Jsteg. Jpeg-Jsteg creates a JPEG stegoimage from the input of a message to be hidden and a lossless cover image. According to the Independent JPEG Group, the JPEG software

we tested has been modified for 1-bit steganography in JFIF output files, which are composed of lossy and nonlossy sections. The software combines the message and the cover images using the JPEG algorithm to create lossy JPEG stego-images. JPEG images use the discrete cosine transform to achieve compression. DCT6 is a lossy compression transform because the cosine values cannot be calculated exactly, and repeated calculations using limited precision numbers introduce rounding errors into the final result. Variances between original data values and restored data values depend on the method used to calculate DCT. In addition to DCT, images can be processed with fast Fourier transformation and wavelet transformation. Other image properties such as luminance can also be manipulated. Patchwork and similar techniques use redundant pattern encoding or spread spectrum methods to scatter hidden information throughout the cover images (patchwork is a method that marks image areas, or patches). These approaches may help protect against image processing such as cropping and rotating, and they hide information more thoroughly than by simple masking. They also support image manipulation more readily than tools that rely on LSB. In using redundant pattern encoding, we must trade off message size against robustness. For example, a small message may be painted many times over so that if the stegoimage is cropped, there is a high probability that the watermark can still be read. A large message may be embedded only once because it would occupy a much greater portion of the image area. Other techniques encrypt and scatter the hidden data throughout an image. Scattering the message makes it appear more like noise. Proponents of this approach assume that even if the message bits are extracted, they will be useless without the algorithm and stego-key to decode them. For example, the White Noise Storm tool is based on spread spectrum technology and frequency hopping, which scatters the message

throughout the image. Instead of having x channels of communication that are changed with a fixed formula and passkey, White Noise Storm spreads eight channels within a random number generated by the previous window size and data channel. Each channel represents 1 bit, so each image window holds 1 byte of information and many unused bits. These channels rotate, swap, and interlace among themselves to yield a different bit permutation. For instance, bit 1 might be swapped with bit 7, or both bits may rotate one position to the right. The rules for swapping are dictated by the stego-key and by the previous windows random data (similar to DES block encryption). Scattering and encryption helps protect against hidden message extraction but not against message destruction through image processing. A scattered message in the images LSBs is still as vulnerable to destruction from lossy compression and image processing as is a cleartext message inserted in the LSBs. Steganographys niche in security is to supplement cryptography, not replace it. If a hidden message is encrypted, it must also be decrypted if discovered, which provides another layer of protection.

the internet may arouse suspicion. It is important to remember that if you hide information inside of an image file and that file is converted to another image format, it is most likely the hidden information inside will be lost.

Steganography in Audio
When hiding information inside Audio files the technique usually used is low bit encoding which is some what similar to LSB that is generally used in Images. The problem with low bit encoding is that it is usually noticeable to the human ear, so it is a rather risky method for someone to use if they are trying to mask information inside of an audio file. Spread Spectrum is another method used to conceal information inside of an audio file. This method works by adding random noises to the signal the information is conceal inside a carrier and spread across the frequency spectrum. Echo data hiding is yet another method of hiding information inside an audio file. This method uses the echoes in sound files in order to try and hide information. By simply adding extra sound to an echo inside an audio file, information can be concealed. The thing that makes this method of concealing information inside of audio files better than other methods is that it can actually improve the sound of the audio inside an audio file.

Steganography in Images
Information Hidden in an Image File When hiding information inside images the LSB (Least Significant Byte) method is usually used. To a computer an image file is simply a file that shows different colors and intensities of light on different areas of an image. The best type of image file to hide information inside of is a 24 Bit BMP (Bitmap) image. The reason being is this is the largest type of file and it normally is of the highest quality. When an image is of high quality and resolution it is a lot easier to hide and mask information inside of. Although 24 Bit images are best for hiding information inside of due to their size some people may choose to use 8 Bit BMPs or possibly another image format such as GIF, the reason being is that posting of large images on

Steganography in Video
When information is hidden inside video the program or person hiding the information will usually use the DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) method. DCT works by slightly changing the each of the images in the video, only so much though so its isnt noticeable by the human eye. To be more precise about how DCT works, DCT alters values of certain parts of the images, it usually rounds them up. For example if part of an image has a value of 6.667 it will round it up to 7. Steganography in Videos is similar to that of Steganography in Images, apart from information is hidden in

each frame of video. When only a small amount of information is hidden inside of video it generally isnt noticeable at all, however the more information that is hidden the more noticeable it will become.

detect Steganography in picture files. If you are trying to detect hidden information inside of a MP3 audio file you will need to find an audio file to compare it to that uses the same compression (MP3.) The same applies to finding hidden information inside Picture files. Steganography Analyzer Artifact Scanner (StegAlyzerAS) StegAlyzerAS gives you the capability to scan the entire file system, or individual directories, on suspect media for the presence of Steganography application artifacts. And, unlike other popular forensic tools, you can perform an automated or manual search of the Windows Registry to determine whether or not any Registry keys or values exist that can be associated with a particular Steganography application. Steganography Analyzer Signature Scanner (StegAlyzerSS) StegAlyzerSS gives you the capability to scan every file on the suspect media for the presence of hexadecimal byte patterns, or signatures, of particular Steganography applications in the files. If a known signature is detected, it may be possible to extract information hidden with the Steganography application associated with the signature. Digital Invisible Ink Toolkit This project provides a simple Java-based steganography tool that can hide a message inside a 24-bit color image so that knowing how it was embedded, or performing statistical analysis, does not make it any easier to find the concealed information.

Steganography in Documents
Steganography can be used in documents, its true. The use of Steganography in documents works by simply adding white space and tabs to the ends of the lines of a document. This type of Steganography is extremely effective, because the use white space and tabs is not visible to the human eye at all, at least in most text/document editors. White space and tabs occur naturally in documents, so there isnt really any possible way using this method of Steganography would cause someone to be suspicious. The most popular piece of software used to perform this type of Steganography is a piece of software called SNOW.

Detecting Steganography
The art of detecting Steganography is referred to as Steganalysis. To put it simply Steganalysis involves detecting the use of Steganography inside of a file. Steganalysis does not deal with trying to decrypt the hidden information inside of a file, just discovering it. There are many methods that can be used to detect Steganography such as: *Viewing the file and comparing it to another copy of the file found on the Internet (Picture File.) There are usually multiple copies of images on the Internet, so you may want to look for several of them and try and compare the suspect file to them. For example if you download a JPEG and your suspect file is also a JPEG and the two files look almost identical apart from the fact that one is larger than the other, it is most probable your suspect file has hidden information inside of it. *Listening to the file. This is similar to the above method used for trying to manually

Steganography Uses
The use of steganography undeniably connotes dishonest activity, but there is a peaceful aspect to consider. Steganography is used in map making, where cartographers add a nonexistent street or lake in order to detect copyright

offenders. Or similarly, fictional names are added to mailing lists to catch unauthorized resellers. Modern techniques use steganography as a watermark to inject encrypted copyright marks and serial numbers into electronic mediums such as books, audio, and video. For instance, DVD recorders detect copy protection on DVDs that contain embedded authorizations. Potential uses of steganography are undoubtedly vast. Companies could advertise public Web pages containing private, hidden text that only internal members could intercept. An attempt to decipher the hidden text would be unwarranted since no encryption (or code) was used. Steganography could also be used to hide the existence of sensitive files on storage media. This would entail a cover folder and an embedded hidden folder.

is constantly plotting to kill people in the western world.

CONCLUSION
Steganography goes well beyond simply embedding text in an image. It also pertains to other media, including voice, text, binary files, and communication channels. For example, the plans of a top-secret projectdevice, aircraft, covert operation, or trade secretcan be embedded, using some steganographic method, on an ordinary audio cassette tape. The alterations of the expected contents of the tape cannot be detected by human ears and probably not easily by digital means. Part of secrecy is of course in selecting the proper mechanisms. Steganography by itself does not ensure secrecy, but neither does simple encryption. If these methods are combined, however, stronger encryption methods result. If a message is encrypted and then embedded in an image, video, or voice, it becomes even more secure. If an encrypted message is intercepted, the interceptor knows the text is an encrypted message. But with steganography, the interceptor may not know that a hidden message even exists. Digital image steganography and its derivatives are growing in use and application. Where cryptography and strong encryption are outlawed, steganography can circumvent such policies to pass messages covertly. Commercial applications of steganographydigital watermarks and digital fingerprintingare now in use to track the copyright and ownership of electronic media. Steganographys ease of use and availability has law enforcement concerned with trafficking of illicit material via Web page images, audio, and other files. Researchers are investigating methods of message detection and testing the thresholds of current technology. Development in covert communications and steganography will continue, as will research in building more robust digital watermarks that can survive image manipulation and attacks. The more

Modern day applications

Avoid third party snooping Security reinforcement layer to cryptography Hiding copyright info: digital watermarks and fingerprinting (growing due to web piracy) Data encapsulation : data and still images.

Disadvantages
Steganography can be used by terrorists. It was speculated that the Terrorists that supposedly carried out the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks used the Internet for various purposes. It was said they used the Internet in order to purchase their airlines tickets. This turned out not to be true, no authority within the US was able to back this up, because none of the terrorists names appeared on any of the flight lists provided by American Airlines and United Airlines. The only people that seem to be pushing the idea that Terrorists are using the Internet and technologies such as Steganography are the people that support the idea that Al-Qaeda (saying it even exists) is a global sophisticated network of Terrorists that

information that is made available on the Internet, the more owners of such information need to protect themselves from theft and false representation. References: www.google.com http://www.jjtc.com/Steganography/ http://www.jjtc.com/stegdoc/